Petroleum fly
The petroleum fly is a small black fly from California with a very strange home. Its babies grow up swimming in pools of sticky crude oil that bubble out of the ground. Oil is poison for almost every other insect, but not for this one.
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Petroleum fly compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It is the only insect known to grow up inside crude oil.
Its larvae swim slowly near the top of the oil and breathe through little air tubes that poke out.
Their tummies fill up with oil, but they only get food from the dead bugs in it.
The oil can get as hot as 38 °C, but the larvae are fine.
When it is time to change into a fly, the larva crawls out onto a grass stem at the edge of the pool.
Most asked questions about Petroleum fly
?Where does the petroleum fly live?
In California, in natural pools of oil, for example at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
?How can the petroleum fly live in oil?
Its larvae are not harmed by the oil. They swim in it and eat the dead insects that get trapped there.
?How big is the petroleum fly?
The grown-up fly is only about 5 mm long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Helaeomyia petrolei
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Ephydridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Ephydridae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Oil fly
Where the facts come from
- Helaeomyia petrolei (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Michael S. Caterino & Cristina Sandoval, The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
Housefly
New World screwworm fly
Lovebug
Tsetse fly
Common fruit fly
Asian tiger mosquito
Roseate skimmer
Giant salmonfly
Four-spotted chaser
Amber snail
Large red damselfly
Green leafhopper